Once Upon a Time...

September 21, 2014

I'm melting, you awful, terrible, rotten little girl!

So, yeah, you may have heard that we had a record-breaking heat wave in Southern California. In my non-airconditioned, second-floor, no-cross-ventilation apartment, the temperature stayed around 85 or 90 degrees for the better part of ten days.

But the cats and I survived. They seem to be okay, although Cyrano -- who celebrated his 16th birthday last month! -- should definitely take a trip to see the ve---...well, you know, that nice man with all the needles and tubes and stuff. Fun! I'm beginning to function again, but very slowly.

I spent much of September in a quasi-comatose state, waiting for the misery to end. Lay in bed, barely moving, eating rarely (although the cats insisted on eating all the bleedin' time). Who wants to eat, when flexing your fingers makes you break out in a sweat? If it had gone on a few more days, I might have been driven to desperate measures. (I dunno what they would have been -- running down the street stark naked at 3 AM, something exciting like that.)

Yesterday, I took stock of where I am. Among other things, I discovered I am very close to flat broke. Have about $140 to my name. That's it. (I guess that counts as flat broke. since the two credit cards I have are maxed out.) In a week, I have to pay rent, an internet bill, an electricity bill ... also food, now that I'm able to think about eating again, also the vet for Cyrano, if at all possible.

Reviewing the situation, there is one good aspect to the past several weeks, that is, "good" in the sense that it provides me with scads of material for articles: some of the leading news stories, including the NFL business and the domestic violence and child abuse horrors, provide endless evidence of themes I've written about for years. And, as usual, some of the most crucial connections, including the numerous ways in which violence, cruelty and coercion in our personal lives is connected to and explains our politics, go unremarked by almost everyone. So I need to fill the gap as best I can. I've already collected lots of articles and stories. Once my brain has cleared a bit more, I'll get to work on all that.

In the meantime, I know some of you must be tormented by your suspect possession of evil, capitalistic lucre. You can unload some of it in my direction, and reclaim your natural status as a person of superlative character and rarified discernment. (Ha! I can still shovel the shit. All is not lost.) Cyrano, Sasha and I would be very grateful.

The three of us will now proceed to splash each other with cold water. Contrary to widely-held, typically baseless belief, some cats, definitely including the two who permit me to live here, adore water -- to play with, to splash, to generally make a mess with. They are too adorable, the little angels.